Dem convention: Previewing the final night

“Folksy and loose, passionate and sometimes off script, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. arrives onstage Thursday night as the president’s most important political partner, policy enforcer, conscience, scold and occasional albatross,” the New York Times writes, adding, “[I]f the president’s campaign strategists are counting on Mr. Biden to woo working-class white voters in Midwest battleground states, they also know a certain creative destruction comes with the territory… On Thursday evening, at least, it is reasonably certain Mr. Biden’s script has been well scrubbed and he will stick to it, as he did four years ago when he talked about his roots and the perils of Republican rule. Bumped out of his own night in the spotlight by former President Bill Clinton, Mr. Biden will introduce Mr. Obama before all of the broadcast networks tune in (NBC will show it; CBS and ABC will not). His role in his 25-minute address, aides said, is to validate Mr. Obama the president, much as Michelle Obama validated Mr. Obama the family man.”

“Republicans freely made fun of Vice President Biden at last week's Republican National Convention in Tampa. Biden's speech here tonight could go a long way toward giving him the last laugh,” USA Today writes, adding, “Biden has two main tasks: to recount the many economic and foreign-policy challenges Obama has tackled during his term, and to renounce the solutions being proposed by Romney and Ryan. There is another opportunity, but it's one the vice president won't discuss, at least not in public and not until after the election: to show he could be a serious contender for the Democrats' presidential nomination in 2016, when he'll be 73 years old.”